Search form

“A Responsible Strategy”

Martin Peretz, editor in chief of the New Republic, says that we should ” help[] the desperate but numerous Iranian opposition and the multiple ethnicities who live under this fanatic regime” by bombing their country. Well, not quite.

He links to an op-ed by Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney in the Wall Street Journal, in which McInerney advocates pursuing a series of diplomatic objectives that are almost certain to fail (e.g., getting Arab countries to enforce a binding gasoline embargo on Iran) backed up by threats of “a campaign aimed at demonstrating to the Iranian regime that with 48 hours we could hit its nuclear development facilities, command and control facilities, integrated air defenses, Air Force and Navy units and the Shahab-3 missiles using over 2,500 aim points.”

This sort of rhetorical sleight of hand is becoming common among Washington’s more hawkish analysts. The trick is to say “of course I’m not in favor of bombing Iran! Why are you attacking a straw man?!? Rather, I’m in favor of pressing a series of unworkable diplomatic objectives backed up by the threat of bombing Iran.” It’s not difficult to see where this all leads. (You can see why I think starting a war with Iran is a terrible idea here.)

Peretz attempts to defuse the endorsement of the McInerney Plan by damning McInerney with faint praise: “McInerney is no Curtis LeMay, not by a long shot.” Thank goodness, LeMay was indeed an aberration, but I’d submit that LTG McInerney is the closest thing to a LeMay that we have today. I recall this passage from the Atlantic Monthly’s wargame on North Korea, in which Jessica Mathews, chief of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was in the role of DNI, and McInerney in the role of chairman of the JCS. Mathews was quibbling with the implications of the military option:

Director of National Intelligence Mathews disagreed that Seoul could be shielded: “My understanding is that we cannot protect Seoul, at least for the first twenty-four hours of a war, and maybe for the first forty-eight.” McInerney disputed this, and Mathews asked him to explain.

McInerney: “There’s a difference between ‘protecting’ Seoul and [limiting] the amount of damage Seoul may take.”

Mathews: “There are a hundred thousand Americans in Seoul, not to mention ten million South Koreans.”

McInerney: “A lot of people are going to die, Jessica. But you still prevail.”

Mathews: “I just think we’ve got to be really careful. We’ve got to protect Seoul. If your daughter were living in Seoul, I don’t think you would feel the U.S. military could protect her in those first twenty-four hours.”

McInerney: “No, I do. I believe that we have the capability—whether from pre-emption or response—to minimize the casualties in Seoul.”

Mathews: “ ‘Minimize’ to roughly what level? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand?”